ALAN MICHELSON
Alan Michelson was born in Buffalo, New York, grew up in western Massachusetts and Boston, and now lives in New York City. He studied at Columbia College in New York and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and earned his BFA from Tufts University in 1981.
A Mohawk member of Six Nations of the Grand River, Michelson addresses North American geography, history, and identity in his multi-layered, multimedia installations.
Michelson’s work was featured in a recent solo exhibition New Tribe: New York — Alan Michelson (2005—06) at the National Museum of the American Indian in New York, curated by Gerald McMaster, and in numerous group exhibitions, including Atlas Americas (2007) at the Oi Futuro Cultural Center in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, curated by Paolo Herkenhoff, and The American West (2005) at Compton Verney in Warwickshire, England, curated by Jimmie Durham and Richard W. Hill.
His work has also been exhibited in several museums, including the Tang Museum, the New Museum, the National Gallery of Canada, and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.
He is the recipient of several grants and awards, including a National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artists Fellowship. Most recently, he was named the 2011 Invited Artist/Fellow of the Eiteljorg Fellowship for Native American Fine Art. His work is in the permanent collections of several institutions, including the National Gallery of Canada and the Smithsonian Institution.
Michelson’s public artworks include Third Bank of the River (2009), the U.S. General Services Administration Art in Architecture commission for the new U.S. Land Port of Entry in Massena, New York, and projects with the Public Art Fund, Creative Time, New York University’s Grey Art Gallery, and the artists collective REPOhistory. Michelson teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence.
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